Baby Boomers slowly growing more comfortable with retirement

It’s yet another sign that the economy is picking up steam. The number of U.S. workers age 60 or older who are putting off retirement has shrunk to 53%, says CareerBuilder’s annual survey of a representative sample of about 2,600 employees and hiring managers. That’s a sharp dip since last year, when 58% said they had put retirement plans on hold, and a big drop from 66% five years ago.

Still, it doesn’t seem as if employers need to worry too much about losing huge numbers of experienced people all at once. On the one hand, the post-World War II Baby Boom generation is so big that 10,000 Americans turn 65 every single day, and they’ve been around long enough to have amassed the kind of expertise that can be difficult (and costly) to replace.

But on the other hand, most seem in no hurry to kick back and go fishing. Among the survey participants who are at or near retirement age but who are putting off leaving, most (75%) say it’s because their finances have yet to recover from the downturn. Of those, 49% can’t see themselves retiring for at least five more years, and 12% don’t think they’ll ever be able to retire — up slightly from 11% who said that last year.

Even workers who plan to start drawing a pension in the near future are defining “retirement” as “finding a different job.” More than half (54%) of this group told CareerBuilder’s pollsters they plan to keep working, just not in the same place. Many expect to need the income or medical benefits, but 28% say they want to stay in the workforce because they enjoy it, and 26% “fear retirement may be boring.” About one in six say they’ll quit their present role to pursue a dream job or a new career.

The current scramble for skilled talent may mean candidates with a few gray hairs will get a warmer welcome from employers these days than they have in the past. Companies are “hiring seniors at a faster rate than we’ve seen in recent memory,” says Rosemary Haefner, CareerBuilder’s chief of human resources. The survey reports that 54% of private-sector employers brought older workers on board in 2014, up from 48% the year before, and 57% say they plan to hire more seniors in 2015.

4 Super Bowl ads that nailed it!

Marketers will spend millions of dollars to advertise during Sunday’s Super Bowl. This year, a single 30-second spot is selling for about $4.5 million. Add in about another million to produce a spot a digital marketing campaign and executives can forever transform a brand in one night. The Super Bowl is the one time people look forward to seeing the ads. Any other day of the year, people work to avoid all but the most creative executions.

But getting it right is tricky. As many of us anticipate what’s in store, here’s a look back at four memorable Super Bowl ads that nailed it and surprised viewers in big ways.

When chimps took over CareerBuilder

In 2005 and 2006, CareerBuilder CDR used a band of chimps to transform its brand. At the time, the online job site was a relatively new company, but chimps changed that forever. The ads dramatized the frustrations of office life; the spots were attention getting, distinctive and memorable. In many respects, the chimps became a critical part of CareerBuilder’s brand. The firm tried a number of different creative approaches during the Super Bowl in the subsequent years and finally returned to the chimps in 2013.

ETrade meets talking babies (and its warmer side)

The E Trade baby is a wonderful example of the power of the Super Bowl. In 2008, the company used a talking baby to illustrate just how easy it was to invest with E Trade ETFC and helped the online brokerage firm break into the crowded world of financial services.

The firm had advertised during the Super Bowl for several years, with varying degrees of success, and the shift to the talking baby broke through the Super Bowl clutter with a distinctive voice. It also conveyed a point of differentiation that consumers could understand. E Trade then stuck with the creative idea for six years, varying the specific message but retaining the talking baby.

Chrysler’s salute to Detroit

The Chrysler brand used rapper Eminem to rebuild the Chrysler brand. During the 2011 Super Bowl, the automaker ran a dark, distinctive ad focused on Detroit, featuring rapper Eminen. It was a surprise; few knew the automaker was working on it. The ad was perhaps the most memorable Super Bowl ad that year. The gritty, emotional tone contrasted with the typical game-day mix of humor and upbeat emotion, giving the Chrysler brand a heart and soul it desperately needed. This was a strategic play that paid off.

That time Dannon turned Greek

In 2012, Dannon ran a charming ad about greek yogurt, featuring actor John Stamos fighting with a rather attractive lady over yogurt. She eventually clobbers him when he tries to take it.

Behind the ad was a tough competitive battle. Dannon had fallen behind upstart Chobani, having quickly lost shares in the Greek yogurt market after ignoring the new competitor for years. With its 2012 Super Bowl ad, Dannon signaled it wasn’t going to back down. The ad marked a turning point in the Greek yogurt battle; since, Dannon has invested and built its business in Greek yogurt.

Tim Calkins is a clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Derek D. Rucker is the Sandy and Morton Goldman Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies in Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he teaches advertising strategy. To learn more about the Kellogg School Super Bowl Ad Review, visit here.

Think you’ve heard every excuse for lateness? Check these out

Ice and snow across much of the country are doing a pretty good job of slowing traffic and train service to a crawl. But only 26% of employees who admit to showing up late to work say they’ve ever been held up by the weather, according to a new CareerBuilder survey of 2,100 managers and more than 3,000 workers.

Instead, people often give reasons that are more, um, surprising. Asked to recall the most unusual excuses they have heard, here’s what the managers said:

“I knocked myself out in the shower.”

“I forgot which Waffle House I parked my car next to.”

“I discovered my spouse was having an affair, so I followed him this morning to find out who he was having it with.”

“Someone robbed the gas station I was at, and I didn’t have enough gas to get to another station.”

“I had to wait for the judge to set my bail.”

“There was a stranger sleeping in my car.”

“A deer herd that was moving through town made me late.”

“I’m not late. I was thinking about work on the way in.”

“I dreamed that I got fired.”

“I went out to my car to drive to work and found that the trunk had been stolen out of it.” To back up his story, the employee snapped a photo.

About one in three (30%) employees who’ve come in late confess to having lied about why they were delayed, perhaps because the repercussions can be harsh: 41% of bosses told CareerBuilder they have fired someone for lateness.

Still, it seems an even larger number of managers are willing to be flexible. A third (33%) of employers say they have no problem with the occasional late arrival, and 16% don’t care at all whether employees are punctual or not, as long as they get their work done — no photographic evidence required.

10 weirdest reasons for not showing up to work

If the coming flu season is anything like it was in past years, plenty of employees will be calling in to say they’re staying home with sniffles, fevers, and sneezes. Lots of people, though, just want a day to goof off now and then.

CareerBuilder’s annual survey of 3,100 employees and 2,200 managers, conducted by Harris Poll, says 28% of workers admit to faking an illness over the past 12 months, down from 32% who said so in 2013. When asked for a reason, about one in three (30%) said they “just didn’t feel like going to work.”

Oddly, some employees seem compelled to give an excuse even when they don’t need one. CareerBuilder reports that almost half (49%) of those surveyed work for companies that allow paid personal days with no questions asked, yet 23% of them still feel obligated to explain why.

The 10 strangest reasons managers say people skipped a day:

The employee…

…had a casserole in the oven.

…had undergone cosmetic plastic surgery that needed some “tweaking.”

…was sitting in the bathroom when her legs and feet fell asleep. When she stood up, she fell over and broke her ankle.

…had been at a casino all weekend, still had money left on Monday morning, and didn’t want to break his lucky streak.

…woke up in a good mood and didn’t want to ruin it.

…had “gotten lucky” the night before and didn’t know where he was.

…got stuck in a blood-pressure machine at the grocery store and couldn’t get out.

…had a gall stone she wanted to heal holistically.

…caught his uniform on fire by putting it in the microwave to dry.

…accidentally got on a plane.

Maybe because some of these tales seem too outlandish to be made up (how do you accidentally get on a plane?), most managers (69%) didn’t bother checking to find out if the employee was fibbing—although, among those who did, about 15% confess they “went the extra mile (quite literally) and drove past the employee’s house,” the CareerBuilder report says.

Taking a day off for a dubious reason? Don’t post selfies. One in four bosses (24%) say they have caught a “sick” employee looking happy and healthy on social media.